In the dining room two floors above, the dumbwaiter clicked into place. At first Stuart thought she’d returned his note as a refusal, then he saw her swiftly penciled response.
Merci. Je viens.
She was on her way.
He folded the note and put it in the inside pocket of his waistcoat. Later he’d place it in a locked drawer of the desk in his study, along with other notes she’d directed his way. Not that he needed anything by which to remember her—he remembered every word, every touch, every tear. No, they were merely to reassure him that it had really happened, that there had been such a woman, and that with her, he had been that man.
Chapter Sixteen
She knocked on the door to the bath. Absolute silence. Then, “Entrez.” She entered, a candlestick in hand. The candlestick was his. He’d left it behind in the basement the other night, and she’d picked it up and carefully concealed it: Trust a gentleman to never wonder what his servants would think to find his source of illumination lying drunkenly across the basement floor, the taper broken in several pieces.
Her back to him, she set the candlestick atop the chest of drawers. Then she turned off the gas flame in the sconce affixed to the wall. The candlestick held only the stub end of a taper, its wick trimmed almost bare. The bath dimmed. Her own shadow loomed large. A tracery of fire gilded the curves of the tub. The water inside took on a glow like that of the final throes of a sunset.
“Will I ever see you in good light?” he asked, his voice too serious to be teasing, too wistful to be entirely serious.
She had to resist the urge to tug at her mask—it was quite secure already, tight and snug against her features. In her mirror she had looked rather dashing, as if at any moment she might pull out a rapier and execute a fancy flourish à la Three Musketeers.
“And what purpose would it accomplish for you to see me in good light, sir?” she countered.
She turned toward him—and realized that it was the first time she’d seen him in any kind of light since Fairleigh Park. She’d forgotten how strikingly handsome he was, his hair inky, his irises as dark as mine shafts.
He sat in the oval-backed chair, his posture beautifully upright, his hands loosely braced under his chin. He looked a little tired, a little melancholy, like a man at the end of a long revelry who did not want to go home yet. But as he leaned back and regarded her, she caught a glimpse of the coiled vitality and undisguised desire in his eyes—
Be still my heart.
“You speak as if there is still good sense to be had here,” he said.
“I haven’t let go of mine,” she said. It wasn’t completely a lie, only largely one.
“Then I shall rely on you. I left mine at the office. Perhaps at Fairleigh Park itself.”
She ducked her head. The bath was small, and they were close. She couldn’t be sure the light was quite as muted as it needed to be.
“Well, Madame, your bath awaits,” he said, without further preliminary.
She swallowed. She’d gone back to her room, used the water with which she was about to make tea to quickly sponge herself, and then, in a decision that no doubt revealed the full extent of her amorality, slipped on only her dressing robe. Now her hand closed around the ends of the robe’s sash. She dipped a finger in the water—it was hot, just the way she liked it. She swallowed again, opened the robe, and let it drop.
The breath he sucked in reverberated in the steam. She leaned forward, braced her hands on the edge of the tub, raised one foot, and stepped into the water. She had her side to him, but she was quite aware that he still saw everything: her breasts, her buttocks, her sex.
Once both of her feet were inside the tub, she sat down and stared at the wall, not quite bold or wicked enough to look at him.
“You overwhelm me,” he mumbled.
A small smile relaxed her tense lips. “You certainly know how to make a middle-aged woman feel appealing.”
“How middle-aged are you?” he asked, after a few seconds.
“Thirty-three.”
“Not that old.”
“Not at all young.”
“Your body is beautiful.”
She suppressed the leap of her heart and turned her face toward him. “Only because you haven’t slept with a nineteen-year-old woman in a while.”
For a moment he seemed shocked at her forwardness, then he laughed softly. “No, not in a while. Perhaps not ever.”
Then the laughter disappeared from his eyes. “Let me see your face.”
“No,” she said.
A look of bittersweet longing came over him. He quickly looked away, but the damage—to her—was done.